One of the necessities of home ownership is a garden hose for watering the lawn, washing cars, etc. Various products are available for ease of handling and storage of a garden hose while presenting a generally neat appearance of the hose. For example, commonly-assigned U.S. Pat. No. 4,586,676 is directed to a wall mounted hose reel having a fixed hose guide with rollers to facilitate winding of the garden hose on the reel.
Portable hose carts are also available which not only provide convenient winding and pay out of the hose, but additionally permit the hose to be easily moved between a use location and a storage location. For further information concerning the structure and operation of such a portable hose cart, reference may be made to commonly-assigned U.S. Pat. No. 4,512,361, the teachings of which are incorporated herein by reference.
In order to obtain a very aesthetic appearance using known garden hose winding and storage apparatus, it is necessary for the user to employ his or her hand to guide the hose as it is being taken up so that adjacent turns of each layer of the winding lay closely adjacent and so that an inner layer of turns is completed across the support surface of the reel before the next layer is started. However, this causes the hand of the user to become soiled with mud, leaves or other material picked up by the hose as it is pulled along the ground.
A proposed hose reel assembly to be installed at an airport for taking up a hose used to provide aviation fuel includes a vertically disposed reel. The reel is motor driven and the hose is coiled in a single layer starting at the bottom of the reel so that the flammable liquid automatically drains. A rotary lead screw, vertically disposed and spaced from the reel, is driven by the motor. The lead screw moves a traveling guide, between the rollers of which the fuel hose passes, for locating the turns of the coils. For further information concerning the operation of such hose reel assembly, reference may be made to U.S. Pat. No. 2,595,655. A pivotable hose guide is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,422,353.